Researcher: Alison Payne
The genus Petrogale has undergone a great deal of taxonomic reshuffling in recent decades and Petrogale sharmani is one of it's latest species additions. Known as a chromosomally distinct race, called the Mount Claro race, since 1976, it was not given species status until 1992 when genetic studies separated it from Petrogale assimilis, the Allied Rock-wallaby.
Sharman's Rock-wallaby is one of the eight out of fifteen species of rock-wallaby found only in Queensland. It has one of the most restricted distributions of the rock-wallabies, found only in the Seaview and Coane Ranges of North Queensland in an area no larger than 200,000ha. While reasonably common in the rocky granite hills and boulder piles within this range, the species' tiny distribution makes it particularly vulnerable to habitat loss or disturbance.
Sharman's Rock-wallaby was initially caught in the Mount Fox area as an uninvited but welcome guest in traps set to catch Rufous Bettongs Aepyprymnus rufescens as part of a project being undertaken by Chris Johnson. A study of the basic ecology of this species is now under way. Regular trapping of two rock-wallaby colonies is providing information on the population dynamics and reproductive capacity of the species and microscopic faecal analysis is being used to examine diet. Future research possibilities include the use of spooling and radio-telemetry to investigate the foraging activity and home range of individuals and microsatellite DNA fingerprinting to examine the population genetics and mating system of the species.
If you wish to know more about this project
or even volunteer as a field assistant contact
Alison Payne at Alison.Payne@jcu.edu.au